


with everything falling down around me, i’d like to believe in all the possibilities

by thehonorlord



Series: Skimmons Week 2017 [1]
Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Canon Compliant, F/F, Pre-Relationship, episode: s1e14, skimmonsweek2017
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-13
Updated: 2017-11-13
Packaged: 2019-02-01 18:07:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,740
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12710175
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thehonorlord/pseuds/thehonorlord
Summary: Written for Day One of Skimmons Week 2017: Season One. 1x14 from Jemma's point of view.“Skye, listen to me,” she said, bringing her face close to hers. “We’re so close. Hang in there, okay? We need you and you have so much more life to live. You are too good and bright to not be the most important person this world has ever seen. You’re not going to go out this way. We’ll do the best we can but I need you to do your part.” Jemma’s cheeks were wet. “I thought we had more time to figure things out, you and I.”





	with everything falling down around me, i’d like to believe in all the possibilities

**Author's Note:**

> A day late but uh, here's my part for day one of Skimmons week.

Jemma stared straight ahead as she and Coulson carted the hyperbaric chamber through the hallway. If she looked down and saw Skye’s rapidly paling face, she knew she would break down and right now, getting Skye to the SHIELD doctors. When they finally reached the glass doors, Jemma could hear herself speaking to a doctor about Skye’s condition. Her voice sounded unusually far away and urgent but far more clear than she expected. The doctor quickly took over and the glass doors shut in their faces. Jemma’s hands were shaking as she watched them take Skye out of the chamber.

“Oh dear, I’m a mess,” she said.

“No,” Coulson reassured her firmly. “You were great.”

That hadn’t been what she meant but she didn’t bother to correct him, her breath coming so quickly now that hyperventilation was starting to become a real concern. Seeing Skye’s grey skin and her shirt soaked in blood made Jemma’s heart twist in ways that she wasn’t sure she could live through. She watched the doctors begin intubating Skye and Jemma brought a hand to her mouth, inhaling sharply. Coulson swallowed next to her, then placed a kind hand on Jemma’s back and led her away from the scene.

Jemma was sure Coulson had guided her somehow to the waiting room but she had no recollection of it. One minute she’d been staring at Skye’s lifeless—no, don’t use that word—still form and the next she was sitting on a couch and Fitz had sat down next to her, pressing his side against hers to say ‘I’m here. I’m with you’. A little while later, Ward walked in and wordlessly sat down, squeezing his hands together so hard, he may very well had been trying to break his own fingers. May followed shortly after but stayed standing, choosing instead to lean against a wall, glaring at a painting like it was responsible for all this. Coulson paced back and forth, cellphone in hand as he tried to get through to Director Fury. It took a while (minutes? hours? days?) for Jemma to realize that she was gnawing at her fingernails, an old nervous habit she’d thought she’d left behind.

“I’m here,” Coulson said and they all turned to listen intently to his conversation. “That’s unacceptable. I need to speak with Director Fury immediately. _Please_.”

“Why didn’t I stop her?” Fitz muttered. Jemma whipped her head around to face him. “I could have.”

Ridiculous, of course. Survivor’s remorse. “As if you could stop Skye doing anything she’s set her mind to.”

Fitz shook his head. “I shouldn’t have let her go after Quinn by herself. What was I thinking?”

“It’s not your fault,” Ward cut in. “She shouldn’t have been there. I’m her S.O. It’s on me.”

_Shut up_ , Jemma wanted to scream. _Shut up_. It wasn’t about them, it didn’t bloody matter whose fault it was. Skye was dying and there was _nothing_ that Jemma could do about it.

May made a strange motion with her mouth, almost like she was trying to swallow some sort of unwanted emotion. “The one to blame is the man who shot her, Ian Quinn.” The rage and fear that shot through Jemma at the name was too much for her and she shut her eyes. “He’s responsible.”

“Yes, the message is I have an agent dying and there are questions only he can answer,” Coulson all but yelled at the phone before hanging up and slamming it down. The last wisp of hope Jemma had had while Coulson had been on hold evaporated into thin air as Coulson stormed out.

She didn’t know how long they stayed in the waiting room. Somehow, she found a tablet, curled on one end of the couch and stared at the makeshift chart that had been created while Skye had been in the hydrobaric chamber. Her eyes went over the stats again and again, her mind trying to calculate the chances of Skye making it through this. She tried to ignore the numbers she got.

The doctor to whom Jemma had handed Skye off to walked into the room and Jemma immediately put down the tablet, standing up as Coulson walked up to the doctor. “How is she?” he asked.

“Not good,” she said. Jemma recognized the clipped, professional tone from when she’d done rounds during her year at the SHIELD medical facility. It was never a good sign. “The shots perforated her stomach and penetrated the large and small intestines.”

Jemma knew what that meant. She knew that the abysmal numbers she’d calculated earlier had just dropped.

The doctor continued. “We resected what we could but there’s been too much damage.”

“So what’s next?” Coulson asked, ever seeking a solution. But Jemma knew what was coming and she curled her hands into fists.

“We can keep her comfortable,” the doctor said and then paused because even the best of doctors hated saying the next part. “But you’ll need to make a decision on whether or not you want to keep her on life support.”

She’d told herself she’d been prepared for this but the doctor’s words still felt like a punch to the gut and it felt like the wind had been knocked out of her lungs.

“You’re saying there’s nothing to be done?” Coulson asked, an edge of desperation creeping into his voice.

The doctor’s eyes darted around the room. “I’m saying you need to call her family and get them here as soon as possible.”

Family? Skye didn’t have family—no, that was nowhere near the truth. Jemma almost smiled.

“We’re her family,” Coulson said, for Jemma, for all of them.

The doctor looked around again and held Jemma’s eyes for a beat. _Please_ , Jemma begged her. The doctor turned back to Coulson. “In that case, I’m very sorry.” She turned around and left. Jemma could feel her knees about to give out and stumbled back onto the couch, dropping her face in her hands.

_Skye_ , she thought. _Don’t you dare do this to me_.

* * *

 

Eventually, Coulson ushered them out of the waiting room and back onto the bus. They were going to load Skye and her life support on as well but Jemma wasn’t going to stick around to watch that. Instead, she went into her room and rummaged through her closet until she found what she was looking for: one of Skye’s sweaters that she’d been meaning to return but never got around to.

She crawled into her bed, curled into the fetal position and buried her nose in the sweater. It still smelled like her.

_“Do not tell me you’re the kind of person who only watches shows and movies legally,” Skye said incredulously as she shuffled closer to Jemma on the bed, pulling the laptop into her lap._

_Jemma rolled her eyes. “Like we’ve covered,_ many times _, I don’t like breaking rules, so sue me.”_

_Skye shook her head as her fingers flew across the keyboard. “You know, it’s not illegal to watch a stream. Just don’t upload shit and you’re fine.”_

_“I’m still complicit in it!”_

_“Oh my God, Simmons,” Skye laughed, clicking full screen on a video player. “Well, welcome to your first foray into online piracy.”_

_Jemma dropped her head onto Skye’s shoulder as the 20th Fox Century theme began playing. “You’re corrupting me,” she mumbled._

_“And you welcome it with open arms.”_

They’d fallen asleep halfway through the movie and when they were woken up abruptly the next morning by the bus’s arrival to their destination, Skye had left behind a sweater that Jemma had found later that day. She’d fully intended on giving it back but it kept slipping her mind.

Thinking about that day now, watching a crappy B-list movie while leaning against Skye, the other girl’s steady breaths lulling her to sleep, constricted Jemma’s chest, a lump forming in her throat. _Don’t cry_ , she willed herself as she caught another whiff of Skye’s favourite perfume.

There was a knock on her door. Jemma stuffed the sweater under her blanket. “Come in!” she said, trying to force some cheer but halfway through, her voice cracked.

Coulson poked his head in. “You alright to talk?” Jemma nodded. “Meet me in the lab while I go find Fitz.” He tried to smile reassuringly before he left but the effect was a little strained.

Jemma rolled out of bed and squinted at her mirror. She looked awful, her hair flying out of her ponytail and her make-up smudged. Psychology said something about how looking put-together made you _feel_ more put-together. Or something. She pulled her hair out of her ponytail and went about her way fixing her appearance.

It helped. Her mind felt clearer when she went down to the lab to meet with Coulson, who was already there, waiting with Fitz. A screen showing Skye lying prone in a hospital bed sat in the corner. Jemma looked away.  “I have something to tell you,” Coulson said. “It’s about time you know.”

Coulson began telling them about the Battle of New York, the story of his near-death experience they’d heard about many times but had never gotten in full from Coulson. Only, it wasn’t just a ‘near-death’ experience.

“That can’t be,” Jemma said, knowing full well that her line of work dealt with science that would surprise her at every turn. “What you’re describing… it’s medically impossible.”

Coulson handed them the file, marked very clearly with the words ‘SECURITY LEVEL CLEARANCE 10’. “Sir, it’s against the law for us to read this,” Fitz said, looking back up at him.

“Are you sure?” Coulson raised an eyebrow. “I don’t care about your clearance level. I’m ordering you to read it.”

Jemma thought of Skye, thought of her laughing at her reluctance to stream a movie, thought of breaking into the Hub with her, thought of her ‘bad girl shenanigans’. She opened the file.

“Death and recovery report,” Jemma read. She flipped through the file, her brain already flipped onto her more logical, pragmatic side while her heart finally, finally swelled with hope. Somewhere in these papers was something she could use to save Skye. There had to be.

She pored over the file, placing a couple calls, ignoring the loud clanging upstairs and the voice of May over the speakers saying ‘We’re being boarded’. She frowned. The file was supposed to have all the answers but instead she felt her heart sink.

“I’ve never heard of half the drugs they gave Coulson. GH-325?” she said to Fitz. “And what about this robotic-assisted-neural-microsurgery they used to implant the Tahiti memories?” She shuddered. “It all sounds so diabolical.”

“I agree,” he said. “But we can’t argue with the results. He’s walking around.”

“Yeah,” Jemma said, looking up at the screen where they could still see Skye hooked up to the machines that were barely keeping her alive. “But at what cost?” She turned back to Fitz. “You read the transcripts,” she said. “He _begged_ the doctors to let him die.” There were things worse than death and Skye, beautiful, amazing, talented, witty Skye, didn’t deserve that.

“This is different,” Fitz said firmly. “Skye’s still alive. We have to keep her that way.” He held her eyes and after a beat Jemma nodded and turned back to the papers, only to jump when her phone vibrated.

“Oh,” she said, smiled a little sheepishly. “I’ve asked Dr. Streiten to advise us.” She answered her phone. “Hello.”

The voice on the other end cleared their throat. “Hello? Is this Dr. Simmons? I heard you were looking for Dr. Streiten?”

“Yes.” Jemma could barely keep her phone in her hands.

“I’m sorry, Dr. Streiten hasn’t been seen for months,” the voice said.

_No, no, no_. Jemma felt her blood run cold. “That can’t be.”

“I’m sorry. Is there anything else we can help you with?”

Jemma gestured at Fitz to hand her the file and she flipped through the papers until she found the one she was looking for. “How about Dr. Kevin Quan? Or Dr. Talia Martinez?”

There was a pause. “We’ve never had any doctors by those names.” She could practically hear the frown in their voice. Jemma groaned in frustration.

“Can you find me _any_ doctor who operated on Agent Phil Coulson after the Battle of New York?” she snapped. “I know he was there, this file says he was at the Mackenzie Facility at _your_ trauma centre in OR 4—”

“We don’t have _any_ facility called the Mackenzie Facility nor have we ever operated on a Phil Coulson,” the voice said, now sounding annoyed. “Is this a prank call? We don’t have time for this, actual patients need us.”

“No, I—” The line went dead. Jemma slowly lowered the phone and then wrung it in her hands.

Fitz furrowed his eyebrows. “No luck?”

“Worse than that.” Jemma walked over to the comms. “Agent May, can we speak to you for a moment?”

* * *

 

Jemma debriefed May who hurried to pull Coulson out of the interrogation room. As she waited, she took several deep breaths and tried to clear her head.

Fact: Coulson had been dead for days and somehow been brought back to life.

Fact: Coulson had not been treated by any official SHIELD means.

Fact: If they didn’t give Skye what Coulson was given, Skye would die.

Fact: Coulson had begged them to let him die.

Jemma rubbed her temples. People liked to assume that Jemma believed in science and sometimes she’d even trick herself into believing that was true too. In reality, though, that was merely a subset of what she believed in: Jemma believed in humanity. She believed in the human desire to make the world understandable, to constantly dig deeper and find a bigger story, a meaning behind the chaos and, with that knowledge, to make the world a better place. That was what science was, wasn’t it? A desperate attempt to find a narrative in the unknown and to spin it into a grand story.

Jemma always loved a good story.

She was a romantic at heart after all; she became a scientist because she loved humanity, loved it enough to want to save and help it despite all its wretchedness. There was always some good out there worth fighting for, a kind soul that deserved all this blood, sweat, and tears.

And yet, here was Skye, on the brink of death, a problem that Jemma could fix with science and she could _feel_ the solution on the tips of her fingertips. But… if keeping Skye alive meant putting her through unimaginable pain, pain so intense that they— _whoever_ had operated on Coulson, had to override those memories in order for him to function, then should they?

She explained as much to Coulson when he arrived. Without hesitation, Coulson, the one person Jemma entrusted to make this decision, the only person in the world who was even remotely qualified to make this call, having gone through it himself, told her to go forth. Jemma nodded and rushed down to Skye’s chamber. She placed her hand on the glass window.

“Hang in there, Skye,” she whispered, resting her forehead on the glass. “You can’t leave us this soon.” Her breath fogged up the glass and she pulled away.

Jemma busied herself with adjusting Skye’s life support system to try to prolong the deteriorating organ failure and when there was nothing else she could do, she went back to poring over the file again, her eyes going through the same words she must’ve read a dozen times now. Skye’s heart went into cardiac arrest halfway through and Jemma flew into a frenzy, giving her compressions until her heart began beating again.

Fitz eventually appeared and gently pulled her away with a better, more effective way of getting to answers. They sifted through data file after data file and, as it always had been, his mere presence and the ability to bounce ideas off someone just as brilliant as she was cleared her mind and she found herself coming to conclusions that would’ve otherwise taken her much longer to get to.

Jemma scanned the file in her hand. “Here, this is interesting,” she said, trying not to betray how quickly her heart was racing. Fitz ran over and it took less than a minute between the two of them to figure out which file they needed. Fitz pulled it out and for a moment, Jemma thought she’d been looking at the files for too long because all she saw were numbers. Then she realized.

“Encrypted,” she said. “Skye could crack this.” Jemma’s heart panged. As much as she loved Fitz, loved how they worked like a team, Skye, through her short time with them, had wormed her way so thoroughly into their dynamic that Jemma had grown to rely on her presence. The hole where Skye should have been was wide and gaping and painful.

Fitz sent her a sidelong glance. “What would she do?” he muttered to himself. Jemma watched him expand the file and… there was _something_ there, something that she couldn’t quite see, but it was there and she knew it. “It’s not an encryption,” Fitz realized and he flipped the file around. The profile of a mountainside spread out in front of them and Jemma’s mouth dropped open.

“Fitz, you’re amazing!”

He shook his head. “This isn’t anything I could’ve figured out without Skye,” he admitted. “It kinda feels like she’s here, helping us, you know?”

Jemma smiled. “Fitz, that’s so unscientific.” He grinned back. “C’mon, let’s run this through the SHIELD topographic maps, we can’t waste any more time.”

* * *

 

It didn’t take long to find the mountain range nor did it take very long to get there. As they approached a cliff face, Jemma hurried to Skye, with the intention of prepping her in case they needed to move her at any moment. When she saw her though, all thoughts of that flew from her mind and all she could see and think about was Skye on that bed.

Jemma stepped into the room and it felt like moving through molasses. She placed a trembling hand on Skye’s forehead, almost like she was checking for a fever (she felt cold as ice). Jemma drew in a shaky breath as she sat on the bed next to Skye and began stroking her hair, matted with blood and sweat. “Skye, listen to me,” she said, bringing her face close to hers. “We’re so close. Hang in there, okay? We need you and you have so much more life to live. You are too good and bright to not be the most important person this world has ever seen. You’re not going to go out this way. We’ll do the best we can but I need you to do your part.” Jemma’s cheeks were wet. “I thought we had more time to figure things out, you and I.”

There was a cough from the doorway and Jemma sprung away from Skye like she burned. “I’m Trip,” the man in the doorway said, looking apologetic. “Look, I don’t mean to interrupt,” he drawled. “But I’m here to help out. I’ve got med tech training.”

Jemma swiped at her eyes. “Yes. Of course.” She sucked in a huge breath. “Okay, let’s do this.” She directed Trip and he followed her directions to a tee and before long, Skye was prepped and ready to go. She coded three times during the prep and each time, Jemma could barely breathe until Skye’s monitor began beeping again. They waited outside the chamber, watching Skye’s chest rising with shallow breaths.

“Tough when it’s your team,” Trip said. Jemma saw him glancing between the two of them from the corner of her eye. “You guys go back aways?”

“Not really.” She kept her eyes on Skye. “A few months. We have nothing in common. Couldn’t be more different.”

Trip gave her a sidelong glance. “But you can’t imagine your life without her.”

The air rushed out of Jemma’s lungs.

Oh.

_Oh_.

That was the piece Jemma had been missing this whole time.

She, Jemma Simmons, had completely, irrevocably, fallen in love with Skye.

Skye had barely been a part of her life, only a small sliver so far and yet the thought of losing her was so incomprehensible, Jemma had barely been able to function all day. This was long past a mere crush; Jemma had left it behind somewhere between LA and now.

She turned to face Trip, eyes wide and mouth gaping. “Yes,” she whispered breathlessly. She almost smiled; it was like the wool had been lifted from her eyes. “You’ve experienced that, Agent Triplett?” _Please help me. I don’t know how to live like this_.

“I have,” he said, his eyes gentle. “Sometimes, a person takes you by surprise.”

Jemma smiled and turned back to Skye. “Yeah.” Wasn’t that the truth.

Trip watched Jemma for a beat longer and then let out a long breath. “She’s very lucky to have you,” Trip said, almost reluctantly. “I know anything bad ever happens to me, hope you’re in my corner too.”

Jemma whipped her head to face Trip. “Oh no, I mean we’re not--”

“Comms are down.” May rounded the corner, face looking stony. “If I don’t hear anything within the hour, I’m going after them.”

Jemma felt a spike of fear and opened her mouth to say something but then a strangled gasp came from Skye’s room followed by rapid beeping. Jemma pushed past Trip, running into the room. “Skye’s coding!” she yelled, her voice laced with panic. “Both of you, now!” Skye started to flatline and Jemma raced over and started compressions.

“How can we help?” May’s voice trembled like Jemma had never heard before.

“I need a unit of Epi!”

“Got it,” Trip said, the epinephrine already in hand and injecting it into Skye.

Jemma gasped for breath as her arms burned from fatigue and the compressions, her eyes trained on the monitor, praying that the epinephrine would kick in.

_Beep. Beep._

Jemma let out a giant sigh of relief as she stepped away. Trip laid a hand on her shoulder and she realized how hard she was reaching for every breath. “I’m fine,” she choked. “I’m fine.”

“Go get some water,” Trip muttered. “You need a break and we’ve got her.”

Jemma wanted to protest but May made a noise of agreement and so she left the room, trying to slow her breathing enough to bring the cup to her lips.

It wasn’t _fair_ , she thought. It wasn’t fair that it had taken Skye coming this close to death for Jemma to realize that she couldn’t live without Skye, to realize that her feelings for her were far bigger than she’d thought. It wasn’t fair that Skye could very well die before Jemma could say any of this to her.

A sob wracked Jemma’s body and the glass slipped from her hands and crashed onto the floor. Jemma dropped to ground and curled into a ball as she bawled, her entire body shaking. Jemma wanted Skye to be alive and well, to pull her close and hug her and kiss her under the stars, to whisper sweet nothings in her ear, to bring her coffee in the mornings, to talk about where their relationship was headed, to propose to her, to marry her and to make sure that nothing could ever hurt her ever again.

But she also loved Skye enough that she would give up all of that in a heartbeat if it meant that Skye wouldn’t go through what Coulson had gone through. She knew the toll reviving a person from cardiac arrest was enormous and there was only so much Skye’s body could take. At some point it would be kinder to let Skye slip into the great unknown, Jemma knew that.

She picked herself up. Cleaning up the broken glass was something she could fix right now, so she grabbed a broom and swept it up. She dumped the shards in the garbage and then headed back to where Trip and May were waiting.

“What’s her status?” May asked, as she entered the room.

Jemma glanced at the monitor. “Weak, erratic heartbeat,” she said and sighed. It was time to bring it up again. “Each time we save her, I ask myself, ‘Is this what Skye would want?’”

May glared at her. “We didn’t come this far to quit.”

_That’s not what I’m saying_ , Jemma thought desperately but before she could say it, the comms sprang to life. “They’re alive!” she breathed. “Maybe we can…”

The monitor began beeping and Skye’s body convulsed. Jemma and Trip ran over to Skye while May tried to get in touch with the rest of the team. Trip administered the epi and they watched the monitor, anxiously waiting for Skye’s to spring back to life, just as it did every other time. But the line was still flat and Jemma tried not to cry as she soldiered on with the compressions.

Trip offered her more epinephrine but before they could try it, Fitz ran in, breathless. “We found it.”

The switch to all her emotions turned off and Jemma was left with her pragmatism. “What is it? And how much, injected where?” she asked. Behind Fitz, Jemma heard Ward giving instructions to May.

“I don’t know!” Fitz said, shoving the needle at Jemma. “Just give it to her!”

Jemma grabbed it. She felt the quinn jet taking off and she took a split second to steady herself and to utter a quick prayer to any and all deities that may be living to do this one thing for her. Then, she injected Skye with it.

“NO! Don’t give it to her!” Coulson rounded the corner in a frenzy.

Jemma only looked up at him as she pulled the needle out of Skye. “I was losing her, anyway,” she said, the fight gone from her. She could feel the exhaustion weighing heavily in her bones. “What harm could it do?”

They all turned to watch the monitor. “Come on, girl,” Trip muttered under his breath. Then the numbers jumped.

“It’s working,” Garrett said.

Jemma slid her eyes shut and smiled before looking down at Skye. _You did it_ , she thought.

Skye’s body seized.

_No, no, no._

Strangled gasps escaped Skye’s mouth and the monitor beeped and the room erupted in noise but Jemma only had eyes for her. Her hand jumped to Skye’s hair and Jemma sobbed.

“What’s happening?” Coulson asked.

Jemma shook her head, only glancing at him for a second. “I don’t know,” she gasped, crying. This was all her fault, she thought as Skye just kept seizing and seizing and seizing. She should’ve let Skye go, she shouldn’t have been so selfish and now all she could do was hope that Skye would make it through whatever was going on right now, be it dying or living. “Please, please, please,” she whispered to Skye, like a prayer, her hand stroking Skye’s hair. _Please forgive me_. “I--”

Then Skye’s body dropped, slack. Jemma almost didn’t want to look at the monitor but she forced herself to anyway. She blinked. “Her heartbeat,” she whispered in awe. “She’s stabilizing.”

“Simmons?” Coulson asked.

Jemma watched the monitor for a second longer before turning to him, smiling and nodding.

“Could someone tell me what we just saw?” Ward asked.

“Girl’s a fighter,” Trip answered, surprise permeating every word. Jemma smiled down at Skye, her hand still softly stroking her hair. “What was the stuff you just gave her?”

Jemma looked up and met Coulson’s eyes. The look he gave her said everything. “I don’t know. All I know is that it worked.” She kept caressing Skye, unable to stop touching her, needing physical, tangible proof that she was alive.

“You’re a real miracle worker,” Trip said. Jemma smiled at him but Coulson left the room, his face slack with dread. Jemma forced herself to not care because all that mattered now was that Skye was living and breathing and her heart was beating.

The woman that Jemma was in love with was alive and Jemma swore she wouldn’t let this second chance slip away from her. When everyone else cleared the room, she leaned down and pressed her lips to Skye’s forehead. “I’ll be waiting,” Jemma whispered and then left to get some well-deserved rest.

 

**Author's Note:**

> She never really did get around to telling Daisy.
> 
> I'm @canonskimmons on tumblr and @silkquake on twitter.


End file.
